Generalized anxiety disorder
Respond to your colleagues on two different days by suggesting additional factors that interfered with the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic processes of the patients diagnosed with GAD.
In addition, suggest different treatment options you would suggest to treat a patient with the topic of discussion.
T Williams
Week 8 Initial Discussion
I remember a few years ago, we had a patient that was deeply depressed. She had resorted to cutting herself. She had been refusing to take any medication. She thought that she would be able to handle it on her own, that is until the cutting started. She prescribed Haldol. After taking it for a month or so, I saw the patient out at the grocery store, and I noticed her having extrapyramidal movements. I spoke with her, and she told me the doctor took her off the medication because it caused it.
According to Rosenthal and Burchum (2021), the exact cause of EPS is unclear, but the blockade of D2 receptors is suspected. Because the medications block several different receptors many different effects are seen on the body. The patient may have struggled with these medications due to being female. Women must be treated with lower doses than men due to their body composition. Seeman 2004 states that antipsychotic prescription guidelines do not differ between men and women, yet studies have shown that pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of drugs do differ. Female bodies, on average, contain 25% more adipose tissue men, and most antipsychotic drugs are lipophilic—i.e., accumulate in lipid stores.
With women I think that I would start treatment with Rexulti. It is a second-generation antipsychotic. It has a low incidence of side effects, and it works. Rexulti is an efficacious and well-tolerated treatment option for adult patients with MDD and inadequate response to ADTs, (Thase, Zhang, Weiss, Meehan & Hobart, 2019). It is better to start low and go slow with women instead of giving the first line medications. According to Rosenthal and Burchum (2021), first generation antipsychotics are being used less due to their side effects.
